Lotus L. Kang

Last updated
Lotus L. Kang
Born1985 (age 39–40)
Toronto, Canada
Known forPhotography, sculpture, installation art
Website lotuslkang.com

Lotus Laurie Kang (born 1985) is a Canadian photographer, sculptor, and installation artist. She is best known for her installation works involving large sheets of unfixed or unprocessed photographic paper or film, often installed along with sculptural objects and greenhouses.

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Kang participated in the Whitney Biennial in 2024 and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Early life and education

Born in 1985 in Toronto, [1] Kang's parents are both Korean. [2] Kang's paternal grandmother fled North Korea with her children, [3] settling in Seoul before the Korean War. [4]

Kang attended Concordia University in Montreal, graduating with a BFA. [5] She earned an MFA from Bard College in New York's Hudson Valley in 2015. She moved to Toronto after graduation. [2]

Life and career

2010s

Kang staged a solo exhibition in 2017 titled Line Litter at Franz Kaka gallery in Toronto. In the basement gallery space, Kang installed a large curvy vertical sculptured metal armature that she used to display a series of x-ray images of human vertebrae made on flesh-toned photographic paper that had been exposed to light. [6]

In 2018, in conjunction with Toronto's CONTACT Photography Festival, Kang opened a solo show at Gallery TPW, where she presented a two-room installation titled A Body Knots. The first room featured several metal mixing bowls on the floor filled with colored silicone that contained cast aluminum replicas of food and objects. In the second room, Kang installed new vertical metal armatures from which she suspended lengths of duratrans transparency paper on one side and lengths of unprocessed photo paper on the other. Kang used various photography processing chemicals to create abstract patterns and brush strokes on the unprocessed paper. [7] The same year, she presented the installation work Channeler at the gallery Interstate Projects in Brooklyn. The piece consisted of a curved metal wall hung with skin-like lengths of photo paper alternating along both sides of the piece, along with sculptural objects including a plastic bag full of colored silicone. [2]

Kang participated in the group exhibition Formula 1: A Loud, Low Hum in 2019 at the CUE Art Foundation in New York. She installed a new large curved metal armature and photo paper work titled Involution, consisting of a curved wall-like form with unprocessed photo paper attached via magnetic metal balls. [8]

2020s

In early 2020, Kang participated in an artist residency at the Banff Centre where she created a series of large-format photogram works titled Her Own Devices. The series includes 35 photograms, the age Kang was when creating the works, all of which feature the photographic outlines of woven or netted produce and firewood bags against coral, pink, and red backgrounds. [9] After the residency in Banff, Kang staged a solo exhibition at the nonprofit Oakville Galleries in Oakville, Ontario, titled Beolle after a Korean term for worm. [10] The show featured several large installation works like Mother, made of dozens of metal mixing bowls with small abstract clay, rubber, and stone sculptures scattered in and among the bowls, along with aluminum casts of fruit and anchovies. [11] She also presented Molt, a room filled with lengths of unfixed photographic paper and photographic films laid out like mats over the floor with various small sculptures strewn around, all exposed to light so the sheets changed colors as the exhibition progressed. [10] Kang exhibited the Her Own Devices series along with several other sculptural works - including installations of onion skins filled with silicone or sand placed on the gallery floor - in June 2020 at Franz Kaka in Toronto. [9] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kang lived in Toronto and began studying in a program for traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture. [2]

Kang participated in the 2021 New Museum Triennial in New York where she installed Great Shuttle. [12] The work consisted of a tall metal scaffolding structure that split the gallery in two, paneled with unfixed photo paper that visually changed throughout the exhibition. [13] [14] The same year, she opened Earth Surge, a solo show at Helena Anrather gallery in New York, where she presented another work comprising metal mixing bowls filled with colored silicone and cast metal objects. [1]

After around two years of studying Chinese medicine, Kang left the program and moved to New York full time. [2] In 2022, Kang began to add a new process to her works involving sheets of film, working in greenhouses to treat the film before using it in installations. [2] Kang developed a process of exposing the sheets to the light of a greenhouse setting, which she calls "tanning" the film. [15] Also in 2022, Kang was the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Horizon Art Foundation in Los Angeles, where she lived and worked for several months. She iterated on and expanded her installation piece Mother during her time at Horizon. [16]

Kang mounted a solo show in March 2023 titled In Cascades at the Chisenhale Gallery [a] in London. [18] [4] In April 2023, [19] Kang was invited to exhibit in the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago's atrium gallery. She installed a modified version of her work Molt, with the lengths of photo film hanging from the atrium's tall ceilings. [20] In February 2024, Kang participated in the Los Angeles edition of the Frieze Art Fair with the gallery Commonwealth and Council. [15]

In March 2024, Kang was included in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, Even Better than the Real Thing, curated for the museum by Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli. [21] She showed a third modified version of her unfixed photo film installation In Cascades, [2] presented in its own gallery in the exhibition. [22] Several critics praised Kang's work as a highlight of the show. [b] Around the same time, Kang began using greenhouses in her installation works, placing various sculptures, "tanned" photographic films, and other objects inside greenhouses installed in a gallery. She showed her first greenhouse work in the Greater Toronto Art triennial exhibition at the city's Museum of Contemporary Art, [2] in March 2024. [26]

Kang was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in April 2024 to support her work. [27] In September, she staged a solo show titled Azaleas at Commonwealth and Council in Los Angeles. [28] [29] In December, The New York Times named Kang one of ten "breakout stars" of 2024. [30]

Kang mounted a solo exhibition in April 2025 at 52 Walker, an exhibition space in Manhattan's Tribeca neighborhood owned by David Zwirner Gallery. [2] [31] [32] In addition to several greenhouse installations and lengths of "tanned" photographic film suspended from the gallery ceilings, she exhibited a film installation in the basement made with strips of film stretched around a rotating rotary dryer used in photographic processing. [2] [3] [33]

Notes and citations

Notes

  1. ↑ In Cascades was co-commissioned by the Chisenhale Gallery along with the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, where the show traveled after closing in the U.K. [17]
  2. ↑ Critics who positively reviewed Kang's work in the Biennial include Jason Farago in The New York Times , [21] Rachel Wetzler in Artforum , [23] Nadja Sayej in the Observer , [24] Sebastian Smee in The Washington Post , [25] and Xenia Benivolski in Texte zur Kunst . [22]

Citations

  1. 1 2 Watlington, Emily (May 2022). "Photographer Laurie Kang Ditches the Image, Turning Her Medium into a Material". Art in America . Vol. 110, no. 3. pp. 48–49. OCLC   1514286 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Wu, Simon (May 2025). "Lotus L. Kang" . frieze . No. 251. pp. 76–85. OCLC   32711926 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  3. 1 2 Park, Min (June 2025). "Lotus L. Kang: Already". The Brooklyn Rail . Retrieved 9 June 2025.
  4. 1 2 Bennett, Alex (Winter 2023–2024). "Lotus L. Kang: At First Blush". Flash Art . No. 345. OCLC   9227733 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  5. ↑ Shepherd, Brittany (14 February 2017). "In the Studio with Laurie Kang". Canadian Art . Retrieved 11 May 2025.
  6. ↑ Whyte, Murray (26 January 2017). "At the galleries: Of tanks, transparency and nasty women" . Toronto Star . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  7. ↑ Mecija, Casey (22 May 2018). "Get pulled inside as artist Laurie Kang asks you to unhinge yourself from your body". CBC Arts . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  8. ↑ Micchelli, Thomas (4 May 2019). "Escaping the Neo-Conceptualist Bubble". Hyperallergic . OCLC   881810209 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  9. 1 2 Hogeveen, Esmé (July–August 2020). "Laurie Kang: Her Own Devices". The Brooklyn Rail . OCLC   64199099 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  10. 1 2 Asimakis, Magdalyn (11 March 2020). "Laurie Kang: Beolle". Art Papers . OCLC   7219444 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  11. ↑ Adler, Dan (March 2020). "Laurie Kang" . Artforum . Vol. 58, no. 7. OCLC   20458258 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  12. ↑ Ammirati, Domenick (January 2022). "Under the Skin of Newness" . Artforum . Vol. 60, no. 5. OCLC   20458258 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  13. ↑ Bittencourt, Ela (March 2022). "The Gentle Force of the New Museum Triennial". frieze . No. 225. OCLC   32711926 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  14. ↑ Greenberger, Alex (27 October 2021). "8 Standouts at the 2021 New Museum Triennial: Poetic Resistance, Barely-There Beings, and More". ARTnews . OCLC   2392716 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  15. 1 2 Durón, Maximilíano (29 February 2024). "The Best Booths at Frieze Los Angeles 2024, From a New 'Mona Lisa' to Art That Changes in Real Time". ARTnews . OCLC   2392716 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  16. ↑ Vankin, Deborah (4 April 2022). "How artist Laurie Kang 'misuses' material to create tactile, carnal installations" . Los Angeles Times . OCLC   3638237 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  17. ↑ Thomson, John (9 October 2023). "Lotus L. Kang". Galleries West. Retrieved 11 May 2025.
  18. ↑ De Wachter, Ellen Mara (July–August 2023). "Lotus Laurie Kang: In Cascades". Art Monthly . No. 468. OCLC   4547163. Gale   A756330781.
  19. ↑ "Atrium Project: Lotus L. Kang". Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago . Retrieved 11 May 2025.
  20. ↑ Lee, Summer Kim (13 October 2023). "Sacks and Skins, or a Bag Full of Holes". Like A Fever. Asia Art Archive . Retrieved 11 May 2025.
  21. 1 2 Farago, Jason; Diehl, Travis; Schwendener, Martha (13 March 2024). "Dozens of Artists, 3 Critics: Who's Afraid of the Whitney Biennial 2024?" . The New York Times . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  22. 1 2 Benivolski, Xenia (21 June 2024). "Is It Real? Yes, It Is!". Texte zur Kunst . OCLC   26389480 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  23. ↑ Wetzler, Rachel (Summer 2024). "Whitney Biennial 2024" . Artforum . Vol. 62, no. 10. OCLC   20458258 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  24. ↑ Sayej, Nadja (18 March 2024). "The 2024 Whitney Biennial Is a Romp Through Turmoil and Abstraction". Observer . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  25. ↑ Smee, Sebastian (16 March 2024). "A superb Whitney Biennial, marred by flimsy politics" . The Washington Post . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  26. ↑ "Greater Toronto Art 2024". Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada . Retrieved 22 May 2025.
  27. ↑ Sutton, Benjamin (12 April 2024). "Artists including Nicholas Galanin, Lorraine O'Grady and Park McArthur win Guggenheim Fellowships" . The Art Newspaper . OCLC   23658809 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  28. ↑ Dalbow, Tara Anne (2 November 2024). "Lotus L. Kang at Commonwealth and Council". Artillery . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  29. ↑ Schultz, Sigourney (22 October 2024). "Lotus L. Kang's 'Azaleas'". ArtAsiaPacific . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  30. ↑ Salam, Maya (16 December 2024). "The Breakout Stars of 2024" . The New York Times . Retrieved 10 May 2025.
  31. ↑ Kim, Eana (5 May 2025). "Lotus L. Kang". Artforum . OCLC   20458258 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  32. ↑ Wong, Stephanie (14 April 2025). "Here Are the 12 Must-See Gallery Exhibitions in New York This Spring". Cultured . OCLC   1009005169 . Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  33. ↑ Wu, Danielle (28 May 2025). "Lotus L. Kang's Hopeful Doom Scrolling". Hyperallergic . Retrieved 9 June 2025.

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